Executive Assistant Salary in Illinois 2026,
$74,390 Median | BLS Data by City

Illinois executive assistants earn a median $74,390 a year, $35.76 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $57,590 and $93,180 and a full range of $50,750 to $104,850. That is 2.9% below the $76,590 national median, and the very wide middle half reflects how much the seniority of the executive supported drives pay in this occupation.

Chicago-Naperville-Elgin at $77,770, then Springfield at $73,510, Champaign-Urbana at $68,560, Kankakee at $67,450 and Bloomington at $66,690. Springfield placing second is a state-government effect: public sector executive support in the capital pays on published schedules that hold up well against downstate private employers.

No. Illinois licenses nothing in this occupation and IDFPR issues no credential. Optional certifications such as the IAAP Certified Administrative Professional exist, but Illinois employers screen almost entirely on the seniority of the executives you have supported, on evidence of discretion with confidential material, and on tooling fluency across calendar, travel, expense and collaboration platforms.

It is consolidating rather than disappearing. BLS projects a 1.6% national decline through 2034, and Illinois's location quotient of 0.83 already sits below the national concentration despite the state's headquarters density. What has gone is mid-level support that scheduling software absorbed; what remains, and pays better, is dedicated support to genuinely senior people — which is where the $93,180 seventy-fifth percentile lives.

About eleven thousand dollars against Bloomington, and Illinois's flat 4.95% tax with no municipal wage tax means all of it is real. Whether it is worth it depends on housing: the Chicago collar counties cost considerably more than Bloomington or Kankakee, so the downstate discount is smaller in net terms than the wage table suggests.

Because consolidation hit hardest exactly where administrative support was densest. Illinois's large corporate offices were early adopters of self-service scheduling, travel and expense systems, and they reduced ratios accordingly — one assistant now supports several executives where three might once have supported three. The result is a location quotient of 0.83 alongside a Chicago metro figure of $77,770: fewer roles, but the surviving ones carry more.

The occupation code mixes two distinct jobs. SOC 43-6011 covers experienced administrative professionals supporting department heads and dedicated C-suite executive assistants at major companies, and in Illinois both populations are large. The $57,590 twenty-fifth percentile describes the first and the $93,180 seventy-fifth describes the second; the median between them describes relatively few people accurately.

Who you support and what you are trusted with. The step from the Illinois median of $74,390 to the $93,180 seventy-fifth percentile is almost always a move to a C-suite principal at a larger Chicago-headquartered company, with confidential material, board scheduling and staff coordination attached. The step beyond, to the $104,850 ninetieth percentile, generally involves governance and board support work that has expanded past the traditional EA remit.